What classes should I teach as an Infantry Team Leader? If you could go back, what do you wish your old TL/SL would have taught you?

Please to this website. This is the Skill Level 1 Soldiers with the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of 11B (Infantryman), trainers, training developers, and first-line supervisors. The Army made the Individual Critical Task List so Soldiers know what they need to train on. This list is everything that your Soldiers need to know and that you should be training them on. There is also a Individual Critical Task List for a 11B skill level 2 for you. It will tell you what you should know. This document also has links to how to correctly train and evaluate the task.

I will warn you that do not waste your time and the time of your Soldier with training that you can not evaluate. It is pointless and dangerous. This will also develop you in how to understand training and developing training plans for SL 1. If you need any assistance you can message me.

https://rdl.train.army.mil/catalog/search?current=true&search_terms=infantry%2011b&producttype=ICTL

The basics. Download a copy of the Soldier Manual of Common Tasks, there is an Army one and a specific 11B one, those are what you should work on. Line it up with what is coning up on the training calendar. Have a defense lane coming up? Fighting positions and sector sketches. Have a live fire? Manuever your team, direct fire control measures. And weapon employment.

When I was a young Senior Medic with my squad, I found I got more bang for the buck out of my time with practice rather than classes. I spent a lot of time teaching classes on higher level things that were good to learn, and that's great. But what made my squad really incredible was drilling them in the basics. Once they can do it basically then making it harder. So, as medics they understood how to do some more advanced techniques like a cric cut down or a chest tube, but they knew that wasn't what 90% of their job was. The majority of their job on a battlefield was: 1. Stop bleeding 2. Restore Airway 3. Provide fluid 4. Transport. So, once they could do it well, I made them do it well under the worst circumstances. For instance, if you can put a tourniquet on, can you put it on in under 10 seconds? In body armor? In the dark? In the back of a moving vehicle, in the dark, when you're both in body armor?

Identify the handful of things that are the highest priority and train them till they are perfect. Remember, amateurs train till they get it right, professionals train till they can't get it wrong. This isn't just an opinion. Ranger Regiment has always stressed focusing on a handful of skills and training them to high proficiency. Not long ago the Army had 40+ skills and drills it considered critical for every Soldier to know, but Ranger Regiment was focused on the Big 5 areas. A few years later the Army realized you can't train every Soldier to be an expert in 40 different critical skills and trimmed it down by 2/3rds.

So, look at the items you guys struggle with or have to face the most. It could be as simple as walking in a wedge formation with the correct interval spacing. Then drill that over and over and over till your squad is the very best at it. I used to keep it interesting by making competitions. If you're a weapon squad that could be Rattle Battles or blindfolded Rattle Battles for time. My guys used to do IV races and blindfolded casualty assessments. Make it challenging and your guys will stay engaged. Make them the best at something and they'll be proud instead of hating training